Batboard

I picked up an odd radio at a flea market yesterday. It's a Motorola Multi-XFL, and dates from about 1970. Roughly the size of a Mocom 35, it uses HT-200 boards along with higher power RF and audio amplifiers plus what looks like a COR board. The front panel has a volume control, speaker, repeat-local switch, channel selector, off-squelch-mute switch and a power switch. The rear apron has two antenna connectors and a mike jack. There are two large Cinch Jones terminal strips under the chassis where a cable is brought in through a hole in the rear panel.

The model number is an SP- type with a string of digits. It is quite similar to the Lookout radios made for the USFS, although those had different and more conventional model numbers and didn't have a high power RF amp (to conserve batteries.) There are two 165 MHz frequencies still installed in it, so I presume this is some sort of federal contract radio, perhaps BLM or yet another USFS variation.

Can anybody shed any light on the history of this radio? I posted this question over on the qth Motorola mailing list too, so for those who subscribe to that list, please excuse the cross posting!

Got it powered up and it puts out 5W and can be used as a repeater or a conventional radio depending upon switch positions. The crystals still in it, 165.2875 and 166.5375, come back as BATF Common Channels 1 and 3, so apparently this was an item made for BATF.

The serial number, KJ098B, should decipher the date once I remember where I saw that chart to decode serial number dates.

Do you have a photograph of the radio?
I worked on a lot of BATF radios.

I will e-mail you some small photos tonight when I get home.

I am having some server issues and don't have storage space at the moment to just post a link here.

Geoff
WB6NVH

EDIT- Apparently I can't add an attachment when using the e-mail button through the forum. You can PM me with an e-mail address and I will e-mail three photos back by return e-mail. That goes for anyone else too who would like photos.

Well now I haven't heard of one of these in a long, long time.

What you have there is a portable 25w VHF repeater/base station which was built by the Motorola Special Products Group (thus the "SP" model #).

These were mainly used in forestry applications as lookout repeater/base stations. Some found their way into large construction sites etc. though.

If you can get it working to spec, they make nice small repeaters.

Hope this helps.....

- Darrell/KA7BTV

>EDIT< I just reread what you said about the USFS versions with no high power. All of the USFS versions I've seen here in Oregon did indeed have the bigger PA. But mabye you've got a special version for factories, construction sites, etc. ?

I have it running now, and this one has just a 5W amp from a PT-300 in it although the head sink is more what you would expect from a 50W unit. It is on two 165 MHz ATF channels.

I have some regular (if there is such a thing) forestry lookout radios, including the one which looks like a Mocom 30 but with a meter on the panel. Those all have 5W or even just the HT-200 2W transmitters in them, since they ran off batteries. Those ones also do not have SP- model numbers, but something like a P- prefix (older) and an L- or S- prefix (newer.)

There must be quite a variety of models out there.

i think all of us would like to see some pics